Armenian Serendipity and Israel Loses Moral Authority

Last month, while browsing the collection of a used book store, I was drawn to a small book titled, Passage to Ararat, by Michael J. Arlen, about a man exploring his Armenian identity. I quickly picked up the book, as it resonated with me on two levels.

First, as someone who has read the subject of ethnic identity widely and given much thought to the issue, I was intrigued with Arlen's quest to find his own Armenian identity despite (or, because of) his late father's seeming indifference to it. Second, I had opportunities a couple of years ago to visit Armenia. During these trips I got a chance to travel widely in the country and talk to many Armenians. I quickly developed a fondness for the country, its people, and their rich heritage. Arlen's book piqued my interest as it gave me an opportunity to learn more about this fascinating country and its people.

Last week I finished reading Passage to Ararat. Arlen's exploration of Armenian history and its impact on modern the Armenian psyche was truly exceptional writing as well as enlightening reading. As circumstance would have it, just days after I finished reading the book I came across news that a small crisis was brewing between Israel, Turkey, and American Jewish interest groups, particularly the Anti-Defamation League. If you have no idea what the connection is between Armenia, Turkey, Israel, and the Anti-Defamation League, read this. If you are not inclined to read that, here's the Cliff's Notes version: Armenians claim that, in 1915, the Turks of the Ottoman Empire (the predecessor to today's Turkey), committed genocide against Armenians. Through the years, Turkey has steadfastly denied the charge of genocide. Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago, the Anti-Defamation League stated that the ethnic cleansing of Armenians in 1915 by the Ottoman Turks was "tantamount to genocide." This got the Turks in a hizzy and now Israel, so as to not endanger its ties with Muslim Turkey, is pressuring American Jewish groups to not recognize what happened to Armenians as a genocide. Ironic, huh?

Issues of identity abound in this conflict. If you ever read Passage to Ararat, and I hope you do, you will note the centrality of the Armenian genocide to modern Armenian identity. Even more central is a sense of Armenian "self-hate," to use Arlen's words, at the inability to prevent the genocide and, later, their inability to make Turkey acknowledge its role. Reportedly, anywhere from 1 to 2 million Armenians were systematically slaughtered in their Ottoman homeland (this is a significant number in absolute as well as relative terms, as there aren't that many Armenians to begin with--certainly not as many Armenians as there were Jews during WWII).

A much more well-known act of genocide is the Jewish Holocaust during WWII. And even as the Jews received some justice and had their day in court, this event too is a central theme in modern Jewish identity. Or is it?

The fact that Israel has made a deal with Turkey to deny the Armenian genocide speaks volumes to the fluid nature of identity. It also speaks to Israel's values. The Israeli State has become a genocide denier for political expediency. This is their right, and likely good politics, but I can't help feeling a sense of loss and disappointment. In my eyes, Israel can no longer claim the moral high-ground when it comes to the dark issues of genocide and ethnic cleansing.

Army Transformation

This article by conservative military historian Fred Kaplan landed in my in-box three times on Tuesday. It was sent to me by friends and colleagues and, needless to say, has very likely made the rounds in the Pentagon and other national security agencies already.

The article is well worth reading if you are into such matters as military innovation, institutional change, and the institutional effects of the war in Iraq on the U.S. Army. It is a well-written and thoughtful piece. In fact, the only critique I have on the article has nothing to do with anything Kagan writes but, instead, with a quote attributed to the Vice Chairman of the Army, Gen. Richard Cody.

Let me set the scene. In May, an Army Lieutenant Colonel wrote an excellent article decrying the performance of senior Army leadership (i.e., its Generals) in the conduct of the Iraq debacle. The article, A Failure in Generalship, was very widely read throughout the Army community. Two months later, General Cody finds himself in a room filled with Army Captains, fielding a series of questions that echo the complaints set out in the Generalship article. To whit:

In response to the captains’ questions, General Cody acknowledged, as
senior officers often do now, that the Iraq war was “mismanaged” in its first
phases. The original plan, he said, did not anticipate the disbanding of the
Iraqi Army, the disruption of oil production or the rise of an insurgency.
Still, he rejected the broader critique. “I think we’ve got great general
officers that are meeting tough demands,” he insisted. He railed instead at
politicians for cutting back the military in the 1990s. “Those are the
people who ought to be held accountable,” he said.

Here's the beef: Gen. Cody copped out with that answer. I happen to have worked for Gen. Cody at one point in my checkered career and I can say with some authority that Cody is known for being a straight talker. He's a no-bullshit kind of guy. So his answer above is surprising because it is a dive. Let me translate what he meant:

“I think we’ve got great general officers that are meeting tough demands." This means: I and the other general officers that lead the Army are doing a great job. We are not at fault. That article is wrong. Instead of being diplomatic, he should have been straightforward with his Captains. He should have acknowledged some of the shortcomings which, at this point, are clearly evident.

“Those are the people who ought to be held accountable.” This means: blame the civilians that were in office in the 1990s. Now, who where the civilians in office in the 1990s? Democrats. According to Cody, the poor state of the Army today is due to the Clinton Administration. What a crock.

During the Clinton administration there were significant troop and budget reductions as well as an increase in the Army's operation tempo (i.e. the number of times forces were deployed). This caused significant wining in the Army because it had to deal with increased deployments with lower troop levels (smaller force structure). This meant that there were too many deployments for the size of the force. But what Cody doesn't say, and how we now know Gen. Cody is a political hack, is that the troop reductions and budget cuts first happened under President George H.W. Bush immediately following Desert Storm. Further, had 9/11 not happened, idiot Rumsfeld would have cut the size of the Army even further (I think reducing it by two divisions was the going in assumption, if I recall) and used the savings to buy more airplanes and space technology.

Thus, to blame the policymakers of the 1990s is very disingenuous and smacks of political spin. Moreover, how reductions and mismanagement of the force in the 1990s impacts our current piss-poor performance in Iraq, is not clear. I think it's a leap of logic. Very disappointing. Yet another example of the failure of Generalship in the Army.

One more thing. The article alludes to the changes the Army underwent as a result of the Vietnam War. That war was a watershed event for the Army as an institution. Many of the most redeeming characteristics of the current institution, such as the degree of professionalization, was borne from the Army's experience during that war and immediately afterwards. (Even some of the not-so-redeeming characteristics, such as it's aversion to counter-insurgency, is a result of that war). The current war in Iraq will play a similar role in transforming the U.S. Army. The jury is still out on what the Army of the future will look like as a result of Operation Iraqi Freedom, but there are some fine line and field grade officers that definitely have an idea. The Young Turks of this generation.

W is getting hammered. In his speech at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Convention this week Bush compared the current wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to all of America's wars since WWII. Most of the criticism is coming from this line:

Whatever your position is on that debate, one unmistakable legacy of Vietnam is
that the price of America's withdrawal was paid by millions of innocent citizens
whose agonies would add to our vocabulary new terms like "boat people,"
"re-education camps," and "killing fields."

The analogy, of course, is that withdrawing from Iraq will lead to disaster, the deaths of millions of innocent lives. I don't know what's going on in that White House, but I think they're cracking up over there.

America's biggest psychological hang up is the Vietnam War. That war was such a social and political catastrophe that to this day, 35 years after we pulled out of Vietnam, its spectre haunts every single foreign policy decision involving the use of military force. Even in the military, you can pretty much talk about a Vietnam and post-Vietnam force, particularly in the Army, as if the war and its effects on the Services were a demarcation line between states.

So back to Bush's speech. If you are an anti-war person, you pretty much want to link the conflict to the Vietnam War in any way possible. This will have provide your audience with an automatic, knee-jerk association: CAUTION, BAD, STAY AWAY. But if you are pro-war, then you want to stay as far away as possible from any Vietnam comparisons, no matter how trivial. Perhaps you can find a way to link your war to a "good one" like WWII. But definitely, don't touch Vietnam. I would think this is common sense. So, what the heck were Bush's press people thinking? Particularly now when some type of a withdrawal in 1998 is all but inevitable?

Baby Steps to Awareness

Excellent article on a frequently overlooked aspect of intelligence reform: the intelligence community's, particularly the CIA's, employment practices.

Mike McConnel, the director of national intelligence, echoed this theme
Tuesday in his remarks at the conference, in which he called for the hiring
of first-generation Americans. For years, he said, intelligence agencies
habitually screened out candidates born outside the country, fearing they
might be susceptible to foreign influences or blackmail if they had
relatives living abroad. "The rationale was, we couldn't bring them into
our midst -- there was too much risk," McConnell said. "We are going to
change those habits. It is now our policy across this community: We do not
screen out first-generation [Americans]."

As some of my close friends could attest to, this issue has been a big beef of mine for a long time now. There has been a few articles recently talking about the stupid hiring practices of the CIA. In effect, it is biased against Naturalized Citizens and first generation Americans as "foreign contacts" is a significant justification used to not hire otherwise excellently qualified candidates for Analysis or Operations. This de facto policy is the product of equal parts "cover your ass" bureaucracy, risk aversion, and paranoia. With a good helping of failure to understand and adapt to the changing geopolitical landscape. The end result: sacrifice improved access to hard targets and enhanced intelligence products on the off chance that we might hire a bad apple. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

McConnel has been a breath of fresh air in the IC. On this issue, as on the issue of interagency intelligence sharing, he is saying the right things. I wonder how long it will take for the bureaucracy to catch up with the vision. In the mean time, I will continue to recommend to any Naturalized Citizen or first generation American that asks about working in the intelligence field, don't even bother applying to the CIA.